I would love to have one of these pranks played on me so I could demonstrate how a confident rational skeptic is immune to silly fears. Well before the lights went out I would have been aware that the elevator was not accelerating, and seeing the floor indicator moving, I would have known something was up. I’m sure I would have been startled when the little girl showed up, but I’m confident the rational part of my mind would have put it all together in a second or two. Unfortunately clips of adults acting rationally don’t make it onto these kinds of shows. Mayby if I cried out “Scooby Doo, Where Are You!” I’d make the cut.

Funny you should mention my Vestibular system as I will be using it when I take my dirt bike out in the snow this afternoon, after which I will be using it to position my petite little sugar baby in all kinds of interesting ways. I truly am living the dream.

All kinds of people People believe in all kinds of crazy things. When I lived in New Hampshire my circle of friends included a Reiki Master and a wealthy woman who had Native American spiritualists flown in to cleans her house of evil spirits. The wealthy woman used to have dinner parties whose guests represented a smorgasbord of crazy beliefs, and I was her resident skeptic. My association with these people led me to consider a side career as a paranormal investigator, but after a few clients it became apparent that people weren’t looking for rational explanations or null results, they wanted to pay a professional to give a stamp of legitimacy to their crazy beliefs.

... says a "rational skeptic" who believes that everything came from nothing, stuff happens explains laws of nature, objective moral law doesn't exist, and living things are what the are because survivors survived.

LOLThanks, Mike. :) I appreciate that. I actually have actually said things like that before! Did you see the 'scary girl' pranks where they had a little girl dressed in black and soaked walking about in hotels (Japan or S. Korea?) and everyone ran away terrified? It went viral at the time. I can recall saying to my wife that if I had seen an agry sulky looking little girl who appeared to be drenched in a hotel hallway, I would have given her a towel and asked where her mum and dad are and offered my help. I really don't see what is so horrific about a little girl. In fact I find something strangely insidious about the whole 'meme'. But, as for this prankActually I think I would have attempted to pass my hand through her projection, perhaps at shoulder level - and I would have apologized if I had made contact with anything physical. I am quite familiar with holography techniques. We've had stuff much better than this for over a decade in the forces. Failing all that, you're right. Cookie time.

KW, What makes you think I would react violently to a child? Do you mean I would somehow hurt the people pulling the prank? I would have told them off, and probably reported them to the authorities - but I do not and have not ever killed in anger and would do anything I could to avoid children being hurt in anyway - in or out of the womb. I actually HAVE children of my own and the rest of the kids in the family (cousins and nephews) sure like to 'hang out' with me when visiting. I feel, often times, like the Pied Piper when they are over. I have a queue of kids and dogs following me about the house and garden asking me all sorts of crazy questions and begging for goodies.

You slander me openly once again - and the strange thing is, I think you probably see it as a compliment. I am trained in a lot more than killing, my nerdy friend. Anyway, I think Dr Egnor's point is that someone with say a heart condition or some form of hyper tension could have suffered a very bad reaction.I also thought that, and the same thing again with the disappearing elevator floor prank.

I wouldn’t, if you perceived it to be a child and not a suddenly appearing ghost. Perhaps you where in quiet areas when you where deployed, but my Battle of Fallujah buddy can be quite scary when startled. I should have known that you would be magically immune to any sort of conditioning.

KW, Quiet areas? LMAO!! I WISH. I was field intelligence. Something like what you guys call 'recon'. I was behind the lines for most of my tours and literally on them in the remainder. All of it was in some of the most dangerous and deadly regions on Earth. No cakewalk. No quiet tours for me. Rather the stuff nightmares are made of, quite literally. My command was often a very small group of professionals, not a large assault force. So, I can understand your buddy's jumpy-ness. Big targets in extremely hostile zones are not cool places to be. But, I think you do him a disservice (I hope you do) implying he would react to a child's presence in an elevator in Brazil with violence. He may well have jumped out of his skin and assumed a defensive posture if it had happened immediately upon his return from duty. But, I would sincerely hope he would not have responded in such a way as to harm that kid. If so, and I say this with all due respect, the guy needs caring help and a LOT of R&R. As to your point about conditioning, I suspect you are referring to muscular conditioning and response. Such conditioning is physical. Sure, I was trained in that way years ago and continue to work on the efficiency of that training. It was of some use in the field, but certainly not what I would credit (at least entirely) with my unit's survival or successes. It was cohesion and the exploitation of opportunity I would hand the lion's share of credit to. The conditioning was an essential physical tool to be used in close quarters and improved the efficiency of weapons at my disposal, it is/was not a mental state that prevails over my every move in life. If I ever felt it was becoming a mental state, I would resign or take a leave and seek a VERY long rest period somewhere very quiet indeed. So far, so good.

Lastly, I am not so sure I believe in 'ghosts'. I do believe, for good reason, in Evil - but I do not fear it as I once did.

"The Christian idea of the world is that it originated in a very complicated process of evolution but that it nevertheless still comes in its depths from the Logos. It thus bears reason in itself."

Benedict XVI

"The universe is not the product of darkness and unreason; it comes from intelligence, freedom, and from the beauty that is identical with love"

Benedict XVI

"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."

Benedict XVI

"Atheism is a disease of the soul before it becomes an error of understanding."

Plato

"Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors"

Isaac Newton

"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God."Albert Einstein

"Egnorance: The Egotistical Combination of Ignorance and Arrogance" Burt Humburg

"Egnor [is] an interesting example of the religious pathology that's going to be afflicting us for probably the next century..." P.Z. Myers

"...so far Dr.Egnor seems not to grasp the folly of his situation." Steven Novella

"Michael Egnor is giving every sign of continuing the shenanigans that has already made him infamous in skeptical circles." Steven Novella

"Dr. Egnor has his own blog now. Hilarity ensues..."Orac

"Egnor probably always was an arrogant asshole, also when he was an athiest. Then he had a midlife crisis, found religion and he became an even bigger asshole."

Troy

"...it is simply impossible for me to continue to believe that the "Michael Egnor" articles are being written by a real person who really believes what he (or she) writes." Mike Dunford

"Michael Egnor comes back for another helping of whup ass..." P.Z. Myers

"Dr. Egnor's deviously clever plan to destroy Darwinism once and for all..." Orac

"Dr. Egnor regularly laid down flaming swaths of stupid ..." Orac

"...Dr. Egnor reaches a new low..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"Egnor's machine is uninhabited by any ghost..." P.Z. MyersSuddenly [Egnor] knows law better than lawyers, he knows biology better than biologists, he pretends to know everything better than people who have actually studied whatever it is that Egnor feels threatens his crazy religion. Troy

"This is not an excuse for Dr. Egnor's ignorance – he threw his hat into the ring, he deserves what he gets. He should have had the proper humility to stay out..."Steven Novella

"...that paragon of arrogant ignorance, Dr. Michael Egnor, is back at it again..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"...Michael Egnor just can't get enough of making himself look like an idiot..." Mark C. Chu-Carroll

"Dr. Michael Egnor: Neurosurgeon, Stony Brook Faculty, and all around Dishonest Twit...based on the level of intellectual integrity that he just demonstrated, he's not someone I would trust to train a dog, much less a doctor" Mike Dunford

"Two Things that Don't Go Together: Michael Egnor and Intellectual Integrity...Someone once pointed out that when a dog pisses on a fire hydrant, it's not committing an act of vandalism. It's just being a dog..." Mike Dunford